How many archers really know anything about the two men for which the organization got its name?

Most archery hunters know that if they ever harvest an animal that makes the Pope and Young Club's record books they have joined one of the most elite groups of hunters in America but how many really know anything about the two men for which the organization got its name?

Actually, the club's Pope and Young Club name can be credited to Glenn St. Charles who passed away in 2010. St. Charles was a member of the National Field Archery Association who strived to bring archery into national recognition several decades ago and thought giving archery hunters their own big game awards program patterned after the Boone and Crockett Club was one way to accomplish that.

St. Charles chose two early 20th century pioneer archery hunters who had gained national fame for the name of the archery big game awards program: Saxton Pope and Arthur Young.

Saxton Pope was born in Fort Stockton, Tex., in 1875. After graduating from medical school at the University of California in 1899, Pope became a surgical instructor at the medical school which was near a museum where Ishi, the last member of the Yahi indian tribe, worked as a janitor. Ishi would become a driving force behind Pope's interest in hunting with a bow and arrow.

Ishi taught Pope how to make bows and arrows as the Yahi did as well as how to hunt with them.

Art Young was born in Kelseyville, Calif., in 1883 and, like Pope, became interested in archery hunting at an early age and was tutored by Will Compton, a friend who later introduced him to Saxton Pope and Ishi. Both Pope and Young soon were making their own bows from Pacific yew as well as steel broadheads.

Young later began making long bows using osage orange which he obtained from a dealer in Woodville, Tex. Pope and Young shot six grizzly bears in Wyoming while hunting together with their homemade bows and in 1922 and 1923 Young traveled to Alaska with a cameraman to produce the world's first silent archery hunting video.

On that Alaskan hunt, Young shot mountain sheep, mountain goat, moose and an Alaskan brown bear with his osage bow on Kodiak Island. Many of Young's hunts were featured on the film, Alaskan Adventure.

In 1925, Pope, Young and fellow hunter Stewart Edward White sailed for one month to Mombasa, Africa, with their long bows to hunt lions. They took seven lions including one that Young shot at 12 yards at night from a brush blind.

Pope passed away in 1926 from pneumonia while Young died in 1935 from complications of peritonitis. Nevertheless, their legacy lives on, thanks in a large part to St. Charles who in the 1950s began thinking of ways to bring national attention to archery hunting, something he felt was long overdue.

Prior to the 1950s, many people frowned on bow hunting because they felt it was an unethical sport. In fact, only a few states had bow hunting seasons at that time. St. Charles, born in Seattle, Wash., in 1911, was much like Pope and Young, an avid hunter who made his own longbows from osage orange and yew. He also became good friends with archery legend Fred Bear and later opened an archery shop in his hometown.

St. Charles convinced the National Field Archery Association it should have a big game awards program and was named chairman of that program when it was formed in 1958. Two years later, however, the NFAA officials told St. Charles the program should be separate from the organization. St. Charles quickly got with officials of the Boone and Crockett Club to learn how they got started and how their program worked.

In 1961 and a few years before the compound bow was invented, St. Charles and a few other archery hunters established the Pope and Young Club. The Pope and Young headquarters is in Chatfield, Minnesota. In addition to its records books of North American big game taken by archers, the headquarters also is the site of the St. Charles Museum of bowhunting.,

The St. Charles Museum includes numerous artifacts behind glass, displays of more than 200 wooden bows handcrafted by St. Charles and others, more than 1,000 broadheads, personal items of Fred Bear and others, books, magazines and much more.

The Pope and Young records program has minimum score criteria for all North American Big Game animals. For example, the minimum score for a typical whitetail deer is 125 and a non-typical must meet a 155. The club encourages responsible bowhunting by promoting many of the same ideals the Boone and Crockett Club promotes: quality fair chase hunting and sound conservation practices.